Singapore developer building £200m east London riverside district

A new riverside district including 3,400 homes will take shape in east London after a Singaporean property firm spent £200 million on the Royal Wharf former dockyard site today.

The sale to developer Oxley - smoothed by mayor Boris Johnson
on his six-day trade mission to China last month - will also see schools, shops
and riverside restaurants built in a new quarter expected to be a home to
10,000 Londoners on completion.

Royal Wharf - put up for sale by owners Ballymore in April - is
the largest London development opportunity to come to market since Battersea
Power Station. The latest deal underlines the eastward shift in the capital’s
centre of gravity - a trend accelerated by the 2012 Olympics. Oxley chief
executive Ching Chiat Kwong said: “Royal Wharf is an outstanding opportunity
and offers a blank canvas to create something very special for London. Oxley
will create a vibrant district and the opportunity cannot be missed by Londoners.”

Mr Johnson said: “I am thrilled at this demonstration of
their confidence in our great city. This type of deal is exactly why I spent
six days meeting businessmen and officials in China banging the drum for the
capital, and it is further evidence of the colossal appetite of developers from
the far East and elsewhere to invest in London.”